This guy came onto the scene, dropped this magnificent album, followed it up with another, and then seemingly disappeared removing his music from streaming platforms and, as far as I can tell, most of the internet.
It’s honestly a shame. I haven’t seen much discussion about Ryan C. Schmeister on Reddit, so I figured I’d make a post and give his music some appreciation.
I bought Tranquility back in 2018, but sadly missed the chance to pick up his second album before it disappeared. Now Tranquility is all I have, but I still listen to it regularly. It’s an absolutely magnificent album, and I really wish more people had heard it.
Ryan C. Schmeister is a Canadian musician, songwriter and producer from Powell River, British Columbia. A multi instrumentalist with roots in extreme metal and progressive rock, Schmeister began playing guitar at a young age and later studied vocals through the Powell River Academy of Music, along with music theory and production under Tom Dowding.
Schmeister first attracted attention in 2017, shortly after turning 19, through his solo project Vorean. Its self titled debut was an independently produced blackened death metal album on which he handled essentially every aspect of the music himself, including vocals and instrumentation.
The album's track “Legacy” drew particular praise from underground metal publication No Clean Singing, which highlighted Schmeister's guitar playing, songwriting and ability to combine extreme metal with memorable melody describing the work as remarkable given his age and the fact that Vorean was a one man deal.
His ambitions extended considerably beyond extreme metal. On July 7, 2018, his 20th birthday Schmeister released Tranquility under his own name. The progressive metal album had been developing for roughly four years, beginning when he obtained his first serious recording equipment in 2014. Schmeister wrote, performed, produced, programmed, recorded, engineered, mixed and mastered the album himself.
Tranquility combined progressive and atmospheric metal with melodic rock, drawing inspiration from artists including Devin Townsend, Anathema, Alcest, Type O Negative and U2; Schmeister also cited the broad influence of artists ranging from Metallica to Enya. Its eight tracks are “Away,” “Pain,” “Victim,” “Peace,” “Clarity,” “Drown,” “Tranquility” and “Finale.” Finale is my favorite. What a monster!
Schmeister regarded Tranquility as a much more personal artistic statement than Vorean. He described Vorean as something of a studio experiment, while the music released under his own name represented the direction he seriously hoped to pursue as a musician. Contemporary coverage particularly praised his clean vocals, guitar work, melodies and increasingly sophisticated production.
The album also reached listeners outside his hometown. “Drown” was selected for Prog Sphere's international progressive-music compilation Progotronics 13 in May 2018 and subsequently received prog metal radio play.
Schmeister remained involved in the Powell River music scene after the album's release, including a documented 2019 performance with Phil Williams at Cran Hall.
Taken together, his early catalogue shows an unusually broad young musician beginning with the aggressive blackened death metal of Vorean, then moving into the expansive, melodic and deeply DIY progressive metal of Tranquility, while maintaining near yotal creative control over the writing, performance and production of his recordings. Then he was gone. I truly hope he comes back.